


Safe As Houses

by MayQueen517



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Art, Booker still gets his exile, Gen, Gifts, Nicky and Nile being absolute trolls with each other, Nile Freeman Week 2020, Nile having some downtime because it's what she deserves, Nile's first safe house, Team as Family, everything is fine AU - Andy is immortal and Quynh is there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:14:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26323210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayQueen517/pseuds/MayQueen517
Summary: Nile Freeman Week, 2020 - Prompt: Love---Months later, she will find splatters of sage green paint on her baseboard and her bookshelf and won't have the heart to remove them when she remembers their loving laughter and teasing.
Relationships: Brief Nile Freeman/OFC
Comments: 18
Kudos: 111





	Safe As Houses

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first entry for Nile Week 2020. The prompt was love and I had a few other anon prompts about Nile and her first safe house. I really wanted to show how much Nile loves her team, but also how much they love her. 
> 
> This is pretty much an 'everything is fine' AU, wherein Andy is still immortal and Quynh is back in the fold, because I say so. 
> 
> Thanks so much to themoonwheniamlost on Tumblr for looking over some of this!!
> 
> The title is from some British slang that means secure with no risk of failure. I thought it was pretty appropriate for this (also, it's a pun! I love puns!). 
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

The box arrives a week into her life settling in at her new safe house. Holland isn't where Nile would have originally thought she'd settle, but it was easy to avoid the US after, well, everything. The train station is ancient, two houses left nearby, one ancient and the other less so. She chooses them both, buying them and the parcel of land with them upfront from the fund that the other immortals share like everything else.

It's her first house that's all hers. It's one of the few times she's not had to listen to another person's breathing while she sleeps. The bed is ordered online, unfolding and setting it up takes less time than putting the bedding on it.

The train rattles down the track, wheezing into its resting place for the day. Her curtains glow with the evening light, sending dust motes swimming in the air as she gently places the box on her hastily assembled table. Nile slices it and the second box inside open, prying back layers of foam and bubble wrap eagerly.

She freezes when she feels the paint on the canvas. Nile swallows hard, gently placing the canvas down on the table. Hands shaking, she dials one of the four numbers programmed into her phone.

"Hello, Nile," Booker says, voice warm and pleased and she's going to murder him.

"Booker, I swear to God, this better not be an actual Monet you sent me," Nile says, voice gone breathy as she leans closer, staring at the image of the ships and the houses that are so close to her own safe house. She clenches her hands so she doesn't give into the urge to touch it.

Booker snickers into the phone, the sound raspy like he's out of practice. She hears him breathe in and wonders if he's started smoking again. It took them forever to air out one of his old safe houses. Nile is actually going to murder him, no matter that he'll just come back.

"Well," he says exhaling purposefully and she _knows_ he's smoking again, "I can neither confirm nor deny it?"

"Sèbastien," she says flatly. Booker snickers into the phone again, the sound warmer this time.

"Ah, I plead the fifth?"

"You're not even American, it doesn't count!" She hisses, hanging up on him before she can hear his full-throated laughter.

\---

She's been separated from the team for a month, remembering what it's like to live outside of a structure, a routine, and a team. Nile wanders the market and picks up whatever catches her eye. Her safehouse is small, just enough for her and a few guests.

Nile takes the quiet for as long as she can bear before she takes someone home. They fall into the guest bed easily, kissing and touching and Nile brings her off twice before Mila-the-Professer-on-holiday slips between Nile's thighs as if she's found an oasis all for herself. Nile comes on her lips twice, three times before she pushes her away, laughing.

Mila-the-Professer-on-holiday doesn't spend the night but Nile kisses her goodbye, knowing she won't see her again and knowing something close to peace.

She crawls into her bed, naked and freshly showered, looking over to the Monet that Booker sent her. Yawning, she stretches, reaching for her sleep bonnet, curling into her bed and the rumpled covers. She falls asleep tracing the brushstrokes with her eyes in the warming light of dawn.

\---

Joe and Nicky visit her, three months in, beaming in excitement as they hop off the train just outside her houses. She's covered in paint from redoing the living room (third time in as many months. She can't help that she changes her mind so many times) and it's like coming home to hug them both.

She had twenty years with the team before this break and she curls into Nicky, letting him hold her close, rocking back and forth. Nile laughs when Joe mutters something too quick for Nile to catch as Nicky laughs. She's passed to Joe who swings her around, hugging her just as tightly.

If she tears up, nobody mentions it.

"Painting again?" Joe asks, touching the smear of green on her shirt as she leads them in.

"Third time," Nile says wryly, "Nothing looks right."

She leads them past the plastic covered living room to the guest room (sheets wrestled on the bed just this morning). The guest room is a pale shade of yellow, the color Nile always dreamed of for her own home. Nicky presses a kiss to her temple, smiling at her.

"You will find what fits," he says, reaching into his bag to hand her a wrapped gift. She grins gleefully, easing the paper open with her nail just to hear Joe huff in impatience. Nicky shares a grin with her as she slides the book out.

 _Chicken Soup for the Soul: Home Sweet Home_ greets her. She stares at it, looking between Joe and Nicky. Nicky smiling at her expectantly. She narrows her eyes, watching his smile grow and the twitch that says he's close to breaking.

"Wow, Nicky," she says, breathlessly, "How did you know I needed this guidance?"

Nile plays it up, opening the book to fan the pages in front of her, humming in excitement as she looks up. Nicky meets her eyes as she hugs the book close, beaming. Nicky breaks first, a snort of laughter escaping him as Joe starts laughing. He laughs with his whole body, flopping back on the bed as Nicky mutters uncharitably through his own grin. 

"Nice one, Nicky," Nile says, grinning as she kisses his cheek. He squeezes her arm, laughing as Joe sits up, handing over her real gift.

"You found a book on Augusta Savage?" Nile asks, surprised. She flips through, touching one of the pictures gently. The other book is in Italian, a language she's slowly but surely working her way through. Joe gives her a squeeze as she walks to the living room, putting the books on a shelf. It's bare, for now, but seeing the three books on it makes her feel pleased.

"He looked everywhere for it," Nicky says as Joe gently pushes him, grinning.

"Like he didn't look in four separate second-hand stores for that book," Joe says, smacking a loud kiss to his cheek as Nile snorts. She takes them on a tour of her safe house, showing them the Monet that both linger over, a rueful smile on Joe's face as he shakes his head. He gives her a wink, reassuring in its familiarity.

Later, the living room painted a deep sage green, Nile stretches out with them both, feet in Joe's lap and head pillowed on Nicky as they argue over the last of the wine. Nile listens to them and their love and when they knock over the last of the paint, she can't help but laugh at Nicky's shocked expression.

(Months later, she will find splatters of sage green paint on her baseboard and her bookshelf and won't have the heart to remove them when she remembers their loving laughter and teasing.)

\---

Nile sings along with the music that drifts through her house as she twists her hair with easy, repetitive motions. She watches her progress in the mirror, satisfaction thrumming through her at the growth since the last time she did this. With all the missions, it's often easier to put her hair into a protective style, but now with months upon months stretching out, she's been experimenting.

This one, though, this is an old favorite.

She can still feel her Mom twisting her hair as a kid. She remembers the smell of the Shea butter and oils she had used and while she's not using anything similar, she still smiles at the memory. Nile hums to herself, scooping more leave-in conditioner, working it into her hair and twisting it in place.

Nile thinks of her Mom, in Chicago, wondering if she did her granddaughter's hair in the same way she used to do Nile's and her brother's. She secures her hair under her bonnet, pausing at the sound of something that isn't her music. She listens carefully, reaching for the knife she left on her bedside table, one from the gifted set Quynh had left for Nile as a house-warming gift.

She walks carefully, placing her feet slowly and surely around the trick boards she'd placed in her first month. She hears the creak of one and grins to herself, throwing the knife in an easy motion that Quynh had drilled into her.

A short scream and a growled curse makes Nile pause, flicking the light on.

"Andy?" she asks, bewildered as Andy grumbles, pulling the knife out of her shoulder, hissing. She glares venomously at Nile who shrugs.

"You're the one who broke into my safe house," Nile says pointedly, taking the knife from her as she pads back into the bathroom. She cleans the knife quickly, turning back with a wash cloth for Andy.

"I was trying," Andy says through gritted teeth of frustration, "to surprise you."

"You surprised me, alright," Nile says, amused, watching her wipe the blood away from her arm. She hears a soft snicker and it's only by recognizing the pattern of knocks Quynh leaves that she doesn't level the knife at her. Quynh hums approvingly, grinning as she presses a light kiss to Nile's cheek.

"Andromache, breaking in is so rude," Quynh says mildly as Nile snorts, holding up the knife.

"Yeah, you could always be like your girlfriend and just break in and leave knives on my pillow," Nile says, sarcastic as Andy snorts. They bicker the entire way to the living room when Nile stops and stares at the statue sitting on table.

It's been placed there, the bronze glinting in the evening light as she stares at the Rodin that she had last seen in a cave outside of Paris in 2020.

"You've got to be kidding me."

\---

Nile moves in and out of safe-houses, taking certain things with her, no matter how long or often she travels. She stays in Holland, filled with the mementos of a long life of love and care from her team and her new family.

She hosts them when she can, cramming into the front room as if it were the first time she met them - but with less dreams of Quynh drowning.

Instead, Quynh spends her evening flicking pieces of paper at Joe with laser-focused precision while Nicky and Booker take quiet bets. Nile watches Andy growl her way through her ninth attempt at the math puzzle Nile leaves on the table. She likes watching Andy get frustrated with it, flipping between the answers and the puzzle ("You know, I was alive before this was a thing!" Andy says, brandishing the book like a weapon).

But with their laughter around her, Nile settles beside Andy, determined to teach the most stubborn woman in the world how exactly these new math puzzles work.

**Author's Note:**

> As you could tell, I am ALWAYS taking prompts over on Tumblr, at [CactusDragon517](https://cactusdragon517.tumblr.com/)! Come chat with me!


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